The present invention relates to a simple yet very effective apparatus for correcting tongue thrust or facial oral muscular dysfunction. More specifically, the appliance encourages the tongue to a position through lingual and palatal portions of the appliance to seat on the rugae for maintaining proper proprioceptive sense.
Facial oral muscular dysfunction or tongue thrust manifests in several severe disorders. Examples of such disorders are snoring and sleep apnea as well as malocclusion and relapse and temporal mandibular syndrome. Snoring and sleep apnea often give rise to both health and social problems. In the severe sense, loud snoring has been known to result in disharmony in spousal relationships ending often times in marriage dissolution. People kept awake by snoring often exhibit diminished work efficiency and failure to be attentive leading to both industrial and driving accidents.
From a health standpoint people who snore can develop an aggravated condition known as sleep apnea which is the interruption of normal breathing during sleep. Failure to oxygenate the brain during episodes of sleep apnea not only interfere with normal brain functioning, but can also result in drowsiness and narcolepsy. The result of narcolepsy during activities such as driving obviously can result in serious injury and even death.
Intensified sleep apnea symptoms known as obstructive sleep apnea, which is caused by rhythmic breathing through the mouth during periods of respiratory congestion, cause the laryngeal pharynx part of the muscular mucosa muscle to swell to the extent that it completely blocks the airway passage. Remedies under this severe condition include a tracheotomy procedure.
Simply stated, snoring involves a displacement of the rest position of the tongue and a breathing disorder such as breathing through the mouth resulting from the abnormal positioning and functioning of the tongue. In the normal position the tongue should be in contact with the rugae, the anatomical folds or wrinkles especially of the mucosa of the anterior palatal region of the mouth. The abnormal position of the tongue leaves a space for the passage of air between the hard palate and the top of the tongue and over the soft palate. The passage of air over the soft palate causes it to vibrate (fibrillation) resulting in the familiar disquieting snoring sound.
Muscular dysfunction is also manifest in malocclusions originating as early as birth where babies develop an anterior or reverse tongue thrust problem due to the forward pushing of the tongue to repel intrusive feeding attempts.
Malocclusions are also related to temporal mandibular joint syndrome commonly known as TMJ and can be directly traced to tongue thrust. Devices to remedy aspects of the foregoing described symptoms have been made. U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,226 entitled APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING TONGUE THRUST issued to the inventor of the subject invention is an early attempt to provide tongue thrust correction by means of an appliance having a solid palatal and lingual portion which prevent the tip of the tongue or apex to contact the rugae. As such the aforementioned device failed to provide the enhanced corrective advantages realized by the present invention.